Redesigning Lifestyles

Interwood, one of Pakistan’s well known furniture manufacturers – offering a range of home and office furniture, kitchens, doors, wardrobes, flooring, home accessories and more – launched multiple campaigns in the course of this year in order to showcase their furnishing options across different categories.

Set up in 1974 as a small cabinet and wood workshop in Karachi, Interwood is a legacy brand that has gained extensive experience in furniture design for homes and offices as well as airports, banks and corporations, hospitals, luxury residences, retail projects and schools. Their 600,000 square foot manufacturing facility is located in Lahore from where they export furniture all over the world.

Their series of campaigns kicked off with ‘Safe Ordering and Delivery’; a tactical campaign in response to the growing concern surrounding Covid-19, with a view to reassuring customers that the company followed all required safety protocols in processing, delivering and installing products. Over the Eid-ul-Azha period, they launched ‘Gifts by Interwood’, aimed at promoting their range of metal accessories.

Next came ‘Dream Kitchen’ based on the tagline ‘Apka Dream Kitchen Ab Dream Nahi’, promoting affordable kitchen ranges that included features such as motorised drawers, concealed LED lighting in drawers and below cabinets, push-to-open and soft closing cabinets – all made to the customer’s requirement. The message was that people could own a designer kitchen for as little as Rs 29,200 a month. This was followed by the ‘Working Together – Welcome Back The Safe Way’ which focused on their office furniture, especially work stations, designed to maintain a safe distance between two or more people in the office.

Talking to Aurora, Taimur Tajik, Creative Head, Interwood, says it was the perfect time to do so because the lockdown was easing.

“We played on the prevalent sentiment people had to move away from virtual meetings and back into a productive office environment.” The DVC took an insightful approach on the fact that at times, online video conferences can be a nuisance due to bad internet connections or frequent interruptions by family – hence, “the only way to work together is to be together” and that having workstations that enable collaboration while maintaining a safe distance are the ideal solution. The most recent campaign to launch was ‘Apni Marzi Ka Package’ centred on Interwood’s home furniture category, particularly their wedding packages. As most weddings have been postponed, the DVC narrates the story of two families discussing how their plans have gone awry due to the lockdown and ends with the message “Apni Shaadi Pay Apki Marzi Chaley Na Chaley, Lekin Interwood Pay Chaleygi Apni Marzi.”

In each campaign, Interwood targeted different audience segments. ‘Safe Ordering and Delivery’ and ‘Gifts by Interwood’ targeted all customers; ‘Working Together’ was aimed at young people returning to work; ‘Dream Kitchen’ at women from SEC A and B and ‘Apni Marzi Ka Package’ at prospective brides and grooms. All the campaigns were developed in-house and the production for ‘Dream Kitchen’, ‘Working Together’ and ‘Apni Marzi Ka Package’ was done by Red Shoes.

Digital was the primary medium used and although, according to Tajik this was the case even prior to the lockdown, the pandemic provided the catalyst. “We were already exploring affordable and effective channels and working on concepts that require smaller production budgets but with a bigger impact.”

Apart from shrinking budgets, Interwood (like other brands) had their set of challenges in terms of supply chain operations, shortages of raw material, temporary closure of stores and deliveries. “It is not easy selling anything, let alone furniture, when customers cannot come to see your products.” Interwood is now planning new products, new communication and new ways to satisfy customers. “For us, it is a never ending process, pandemic or no pandemic,” concludes Tajik.